School Shooting

The trial of a California teenager accused of fatally shooting a gay classmate at school is drawing to a close, with the defense trying to chip away at the prosecution’s argument that the killing was a hate crime fueled by homophobia and white supremacist sympathies.

Prosecutors say Brandon McInerney is a white supremacist who was lying in wait to kill 15-year-old Larry King because he was openly gay. But a friend of McInerney, who is black, testified Thursday that’s not the case at all.

A school janitor told investigators he went home and got a gun before returning to an elementary school and killing the principal who he thought had fired him several hours earlier, authorities said Thursday.